


Tension

by whamylate



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 06:52:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18278054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whamylate/pseuds/whamylate
Summary: Mentally and physically Alex rears back, unsure if the venom in the question is directed at himself, or at Fraser or at Will. Or indeed at anyone at all. George's hand snakes out from the covers and grabs his knee. "No, stay. We can talk about it." Alex's heart stops beating for a moment, he swears.He nods.----the tag's a bit sad so i thought i'd drop the first half or so of this early? this has been in the works since december and it's still not great or finished, but it's a learning curve!





	Tension

It doesn't mean anything. That's the reminder Alex is trying to keep at the front of his mind the first time Will pats him on the head with a familiar grin on the way out of the room.

It really doesn't mean anything. That's the thought Alex tries to keep in his head the first time George pretends to kiss him on the cheek before heading out to the shops.

It doesn't mean anything at all. That's the mantra Alex is trying to keep on loop the first time James puts him to bed after a long night out and hesitates at his side before closing the door.

After all, they're just little things. Increments of affection, tokens of friendship from the colleagues he cares about. Of course, everyone has their own ways of being friendly. Some people are distant and aloof, some are warm and loud, some are physical and borderline flirtatious. He's reading too far into it, and that is simply that.

It must be past 2am when he wakes up, a loud thump ending a nonsensical dream. Something about a childhood friend. A nice, silly fantasy. Not something he had particularly wanted to be woken up from, but he doesn't really want to abandon his warm bed and duke it out with George this early either. He wonders briefly what the fuck his roommate could be doing at so late that isn't quiet work on the computer. Does it matter right now? Nah. Alex curls his hand into a fist to rap on the wall and hears-

Oh. Right.

Another hastily-muffled gasp passes through the plaster like so much paper, followed by a muted whine. It's the high and breathy kind, and Alex raises his eyebrows to himself in the dark. Immediately he feels like a royal piece of shit. None of his business to judge, is it? This is his roommate, it isn't like this hasn't happened before on awkward occasion. And it isn't like...it isn't like he'd imagined it. Where had that thought come from?

Nonetheless, the irregular, juddering intake of breath turns out to be kind of distracting when he listens for it. In more ways than one. His stomach aches, his mouth feels dry. The decent thing to do would be put in his headphones and go back to sleep, and Alex simply can't justify the moment he wavers before plugging them into his phone.

"Alex... _please_..."

The wire slips from his hands and they fall onto the carpet with a soft thump. In the early hours' relative silence, it could be louder than glass shattering. George goes understandably silent, and Alex can sense his own face slowly but surely flushing as he reaches over to drag up the headphones onto his bed. There are a dozen explanations. A hundred. An infinite library of ways he's reading this wrong, being intrusive, self-indulging, simply not being a good friend. Alex is surely a girl. A hook-up? An ex? It doesn't mean anything. _That's because Alex is a girl,_  he rationalises to himself. There's a scolding note to it if he tries hard enough.

The few seconds it takes to set up his playlist are possibly the quickest he has ever moved in his life, and he doesn't move for the rest of the night. Sleep doesn't even bother with him after that.

A week or two passes, and Alex violently shoves the incident to the back of his mind in favour of spending as much time as possible playing Fifa with James. (This has absolutely nothing to do with how George won't even meet his eye or hug him, and even less with how intensely it is starting to piss him off.) It's been getting colder and colder in the apartment for a good month now; whenever his friend decides to come by it seems a good excuse to stick together like glue.

It also seems the obvious reason for why they're all but curled up on the sofa, James' left arm occasionally dipping under Alex's to sabotage his controller or demonstrate some advice. Then it comes into his head suddenly, background noise to the bright colours onscreen, that he's barely a foot away from sitting squarely in James' lap.

The ridiculous thought breaks his focus. Of course the match ends badly, and Alex thumps the controller into his thigh with a derisive snort.

"Whatever. Team was shit anyway," he maintains, glancing out of the corner of his eye for James' reaction. He's nodding sarcastically and wearing a shit-eating grin, tapping out a simple ryhthm on the hem of Alex's jumper as he mutters something about being hungry and not really in the mood.

"Or maybe you're just shit," James interrupts with a lazy shrug. Alex cackles and pretends to punch him in the arm.  
"Piss off! I would've won if not for you!"  
"Doubt it mate, even you can use these controllers." _Dickhead._  
_"_ Dickhead _._ One more match?"

Instead of answering immediately, James pauses in his quiet tapping and settles his hand almost too casually on Alex's hip. In the cozy atmosphere they've cultivated, it could be more delicate than glass. He feels like that himself really, like a transparent fragile sculpture in the shape of somebody he used to know well.

"Yeah, sounds grand to me," James mutters with a yawn, stretching out one arm in the process. The other stays firmly in place, fingertips barely brushing Alex's thigh. The illusion of accident falls away.

And so that's how they play the next match, Alex deliriously aware - and trying not to be - of the loose grip that tightens around his side whenever the game gets tense. At some point he roars triumphantly at an unlikely goal, arms and legs starfishing out on the sofa. And if maybe his right leg ends up hooked over James' knee, and he maybe doesn't bother moving it back, then that is totally fine. It doesn't mean anything. The game music keeps on playing into the silence. The match finishes (of course Alex wins, playing with both hands) and neither of them move. Which is fine! It's totally fine.

He shivers from the chill and scoots over without thinking, shuffling until he's all but wrapped around James and everything is warm and nice.

A throat is cleared loudly and Alex hurriedly apologises, crossing his legs and falling back onto his own side of the sofa. Head cocked in perceived puzzlement, James opens his mouth as if to say something. Before he can, his eyes drift past Alex's shoulder and he just...freezes.

George's bedroom door slams shut with a thunderous noise that seems to echo through the flat.

"What was that about?" James pipes up, not-so-subtly returning both hands to his lap and clasping them together with uncharacteristic tact. Alex shrugs noncommittally and slumps into his seat. Throwing one arm across his face in exasperation is usually enough to dodge an awkward question. But, of course, James doesn't let up. "No, seriously." He blinks with wide eyes, languid strokes of long lashes over careful concern. "Are things okay with you two? Should I go?"

That last question hangs there in the tension-charged air like so much thick, choking smoke. Alex makes a rumbling noise of frustration through his sleeve and nods.

"I...sorry, yeah. I think that'd be best, if that's alright, sorry."

There is an excruciating beat wherein nobody says anything. Alex imagines a hundred thoughts go unheard in that split-second alone.

"I'm recording," George yells from his room, voice muffled by a door and presumably a bandanna, "Why not piss off to Marriott's? Then I can have a bit of peace and quiet." Sure, the words are friendly enough. But there's an implicit bite behind them that shapes Alex's grimace into a full-on wince, and when he turns to whine to James about it the front door is already clicking shut.

Alex stands in the hallway by himself and worries.

"Drink to forget," he semi-jokes later on in the week, and Fraser whoops lamely as they down their shots. They're loosely sprawled out on the sofa, George and James are making overly friendly conversation over by the kitchenette and nobody has a fucking clue where Will and Gee have disappeared to. All in all, a normal Friday night.

"Even alcohol won't let me forget you," George murmurs with almost reverent sarcasm, ignoring the almost imperceptible tightening of James' forehead. Alex notices. "You wouldn't leave me alone if I funded your Fifa addiction fuckery for a year."

"What can I say?" he shoots back, waving to Gee as she comes in. "My fuckery is legendary." Phrasing could have been better, perhaps, but George simply slumps back against the countertop whilst Gee and James raise their eyebrows at each other and Fraser giggles.

"How're you doing?" he slurs for the third time this evening, as if he's not significantly more sober than Alex. The sappy bastard likes trying it on, all the same.

"I'm doing grand," he blusters a second too late, and his sofamate all but flops over onto him in a worried, tipsy hug. He thinks he hears someone - or two someones - choke on their drink as he awkwardly pats Fraser on the back and waits it out.

When he can breathe again, he turns around. George is looking placidly into his glass and James is scrolling through something whilst smiling. They're both beet-red in the face, which Alex puts down to copious amounts of alcohol and the weird tension in the air. Hopefully they aren't arguing.

"Hmm? Al-ex, you're mumbling to yourself," he hears from behind him, Will's drunken singsong wrapping around him like warm arms. It takes a moment to realise that he hasn't suddenly grown an affinity for simile, and that he can feel both warm arms and warm breath against his neck.

How Will manages to squirm onto the sofa without moving his arms or kicking Fraser in the face, Alex doesn't have the foggiest. But it feels nice to curl up between the two of them and rest. Feels nice when Will rubs little circles into his back, too. It could be freshly-blown glass in the social haven that they're all bubbled away in, beautiful and delicate and dangerously warm.

At some point the balance is disturbed as Fraser wanders over to the balcony to talk to Gee, and Alex finds his head in Will's lap. It's...it's nice. The latter doesn't seem to know what to do - except fiddle with Alex's hair and focus, unblinking, on the television - and maybe that's okay.

"Someone's handsy today," he snarks gently, too tired to lace the words with warning. Will barks out a laugh and runs his hands through Alex's fringe. He very carefully avoids everything else. It doesn't mean anything. The door closes on either James or George, and whoever is leaving doesn't throw back a goodbye so Alex doesn't even try. It's comfortable here, somehow at ease in Will's little bubble of electric tension.

He falls asleep like that, ruddy-cheeked and cozy, coaxed to sleep by Will and that is all.

When he sees the tweet that morning, he can't find it in himself to be anything better than fucking furious for a good ten minutes.

It's just a short video, his head on Will's lap and his eyes flickering about under his eyelids as he sleeps. He notices first that the edge of George's glasses and a hint of skin are in shot - so he won't be the only one going apeshit at Fraser this morning - and he notices second that he has both arms wrapped around Will's legs. Things boil over in his brain.

**fraser👏🍻🍞**

what the fuck

_?_

your fucking tweet boss

_Oh yeah lol_  
_Will thought it was hilarious_

maybe will should have looked a bit closer thwn  
then*  
it looks like i'm blowing him in my sleep

_Weren't you?_

🖕  
it's also got like half of george's face in it you bellend

_Oh no_

yeah and thats just on the fucking internet now  
grand  
i'm a bit pissed off to be honest with you mate

_Ugh im sorry_  
_like I'm seriously sorry_

Alex knows he's being honest, and tries to be a little more forgiving.

i don't mind so much but george is going to have your fucking head if you don't damage control that shit rn

_already on it_  
_Isaac came over after you fell asleep i'll just say it was him in weird lighting_

vanilla rice in glasses mistaken for big george memeulous  
right

_Bloody hell he's actually gonna kill me isn't he_

i think ur on your "bloody" own with this one mate

So maybe he doesn't feel _that_  forgiving.

_fair enough_

Alex doesn't reply; there isn't much more to say. He sets to working through the writhing mass of worry in his head instead.

James has posted way worse stuff, right? But that's different, that's just banter; that's just...how they always are. Will and himself are much more reserved onscreen, so it might look suspicious. Maybe people will take it as it is, affectionate friendship. Maybe they won't. It's the fucking internet. Has anyone cottoned onto it being George? Fraser's quote unquote "damage control" might crash and burn. Maybe nobody thinks anything of it at all and it'll be forgotten by next week. It all goes around and around in his head in a miserable carousel, and Alex wants to get off the ride.

When he snaps out of it an hour has passed and it's really too late for breakfast. He drags himself out of bed down to the fridge anyway and compromises, nicking one of George's poncy little yoghurt drinks.

"You best not be scarfing one of my Actimels," the huddle of fabric arranged in an approximation of George on the sofa hollers almost instantly. Alex wonders why he's blustering so much, and takes another bottle to give him when he sits down feeling all giggly. Maybe it's hysterics.

"Can you catch?"

  
George cannot catch, as it turns out, but he could curse for England.

Kneeling down to pick it up and then throwing it directly at him is oddly therapeutic. Roughhousing and insults and quick smiles and smooth glances is the way their friendship should be, he reminds himself for the hundredth time.

Alex settles down again and steals half of the blankets - to shrill protest - before remembering why he was so pissed in the first place. "Did you see Fraser's tweet?" He probes experimentally, reaching for the remote. George's shoulder stiffens, but Alex turns to him and there's a sunshine-bright veneer of teeth on show. It looks painful.

"Which one?" his roommate murmurs dryly, drawing the duvet - why he didn't just stay in his room if he wanted to be in bed, Alex ponders - further up around his shoulders. "Certainly not the one that nearly got my ugly mug out and looks like you're having a wet dream about Will bloody Lenney, right?" His voice pitches up wildly on the last few words and trails off into a half-hearted chuckle.

Mentally and physically Alex rears back, unsure if the venom in the question is directed at himself, or at Fraser or at Will. Or indeed at anyone at all. George's hand snakes out from the covers and grabs his knee. "No, stay. We can talk about it." Alex's heart stops beating for a moment, he swears.

He nods.

"I'm...a little worried?" That's all that's offered, and for a hot minute of pregnant quiet Alex wonders if that's it.

"Asking me or telling me," Alex deadpans, but the way George flinches puts him firmly into backpedal. "Joking! Jokes, baited, kidding."

No matter how much he huffs and puffs and wails baited, there's a smile mixed into the mess that is George's expression.

"Ah'm, uh, I'm worried about...everyone. There's been a bit of tension, I think, like tension in how we're all getting on, and after last night-"

The bathroom door opens and out comes James, ruffling his hair dry with one hand and holding up a towel with the other. Dèja vu hits Alex squarely in the stomach, and he can feels eyes on the back of his neck. George is right; it feels like he's stuck in a warzone. Like being in the middle of a pitched battle over something he doesn't want to think about because it's all in his head and _it doesn't mean anything._

"You were saying?"

"Nothin', 'll tell you later," George mutters, curling somehow deeper into the sofa and picking up the Xbox controller without so much of a look at James.

"...Morning." James looks at Alex after an audible pause. The word crackles through the tension in the air. _Did I do something wrong?_ he mouths over the armrest, and then  _Is he alright?_ There's nothing to do but shrug.

Alex does some research. Alex records a video. Alex sits up editing until God knows when. An incredibly productive day, all told, but he can't help feeling that it's all wrong. Jokes don't seem to land. He looks fundamentally unhappy. Unedited footage, including his frustration when he stutters or coughs mid-rant, including his private moments of dejected bleak silence, looms ahead.

Somebody rips off his headphones and sound blooms into the world. Somebody laughing a few rooms over, water running above, the omnipresent murmur of distant traffic; they flood into his ears and culminate in Will's cheeky curiosity.

"What you doin'?"

"What does it look like, cunt?" But he's smiling wide, feeling lighter than he's felt all day. He could cry, and he very nearly does. "Why are you in my room?" There's nothing vindictive in it, but Will's face crumples as he perches on the mattress. Alex scrambles to soothe him anyway.

"I..." Pause. He licks his lips and waits for some horrible inverse deus ex machina, for some unpredictable predictability to intervene. Nobody bursts in. The air is still, tension cut loose and abandoned. "I've been tryin', ah, trying to figure out how to tell you this. For a while now. Is all."

He's worried, for a beat. Is someone sick or hurt or dying? Then it dawns on him with all the fanfare of the carousel he wants to never ride again. Oh no.

_Will's in love with me._

It swamps him, it drowns him. The very concept tears his breath from his lungs, dashes his heart against the coast, wrenches his soul from his body and shapes it into...

"You?"

"Me? Me what?"

"Uh, I mean, yes?"

Will carries on speaking, and Alex doesn't really listen for a while, just kind of looks at the contours of his face and blanks. Idiot. He's an idiot.

"-dunno how to say it really, it's just kind of competitive and weird. Fraser says you're," he affects what could charitably be called their friend's accent with incredible inaccuracy, 'to-tal-ly blahdy obliv-ee-ous'."

"Oblivious to what?" he snaps, back in the present. Will rolls his eyes and starts paraphrasing, slowly, like Alex is some kind of dumb kid. It does sting, but he deserves it.

"George and James both like you for some reason, and it's a fucking travesty that you're dumb enough not to realise." It reads like playground gossip, ironically enough, and Alex doesn't exactly know how to respond. This time, Will's casual smirk seems to expect it. "I'll leave you to it, eh?" They flip each other the bird as Will backs out of his room, and Alex pretends not to hear him whoop to himself in success. _Motherfucker._

Then it washes over him. Unlike the battering current of Will's potential attention, the idea of George and/or James being interested in someone like him is...muted. Not in a bad way; the opposite. Less of the panic, for one. Running with the ocean metaphors, James is a soft swelling tide at the edge of his awareness. Inexorable, inexplicable and inevitably there. George is the sandy beach, a million tiny moments ingrained in his memories. Will and James and George are all part of him, just like Fraser and Isaac and Lauren and Gee and Stephen and Laurence and Brian and everyone else he's met through this stupid wonderful job.

And that's the beautiful issue, isn't it?

For a few days after that he barely gets anything done at all. He falls asleep so late and wakes so early that the almost undamaged flow of consciousness makes him feel like he's been awake for weeks. It sucks, to be frank, and Alex is only slightly mollified when his new video well and truly bangs. As a rule he doesn't read the comments, but he goes down there to add a couple of relevant links and it's nice to see how intensely his efforts are appreciated.

When the upload buzz wears off and the rent is taken care of, he has no energy left. It's like a hangover, but also not, and he doesn't know how to fix it. So he just lies down around the house and makes weird noises until George stops ribbing him about it and starts being worried.

Then it's enforced bed rest and some fucking abominable soup that he eats literally only because of the look on George's face. He hates being sick.

He tweets out that he's sick and not to expect a video for a little while, to rapturous support. He fumbles a third attempt at an Instagram story and throws his phone across the room. He thinks George maybe picks it up. Everything hurts and is loud and makes him exert himself way too much, and it only gets worse until the sun is setting and he can hear people whispering in the next room.

"...not your fault..."  
"No...think it was stress..."  
"You two...swear to _God..._ calm it..."

He can make out disgruntled snippets but nothing of substance, so he snorts the phlegm away and teeters over to the door. It creaks open and George, James, Fraser and Will turn in unison to look at him. They look like guilty toddlers, nursing mugs of tea and sour expressions, which melt into reassuring friendliness as soon as they see him. He offers a confused smile and they all slump happily, except for George who rushes over to support him as if he's literally about to have a fucking heart attack. It's kind of nice. In a selfish way, it's kind of nice.

It stops being nice when his fever doesn't break, even though everyone stays over to coddle him. He can kind of tell who sits next to him through the night, just from how they watch over him. Every so often there's a flash of lucid awareness, colours bright and saturated before he slips back into rest. From those sharp moments of clarity he builds comforting little vignettes of his friends.

Will. Will's worried gaze doesn't leave his face as he stumbles in and out of the waking world. After a while he starts to make frustrated noises, tapping at the rip in his jeans and running a hand through his hair, but he never rips his eyes away from Alex's.

James. James kicks Will out after a while, probably in a vain attempt to give Alex some space. He tidies the room, sits back down. Paces around the mattress to draw the blinds, sits back down. Takes a call quietly, sits back down. Shoulders sagging under the weight of worry, he always comes back.

George. George waffles like a champion. He tells Alex over and over that he loves him and appreciates him and needs him. George serenades him in every colour of the rainbow that is his nauseated vision. In his mind, only George's mouth is moving.

And then there's Fraser. Fraser simply haunts the doorframe, hovering at his shoulder for a moment and flitting back and forth with restless resolution. To Alex's addled brain, he's like some kind of bright fucking guardian angel. They all are.

There's no proper chronology to it, no moment when somebody leaves or arrives, just a constant safety net under the storm roiling in his veins. At some point the skies clear enough to see the ground so far below, but by then he's tired enough not to care.

Someone's hand brushes his arm. Someone's hand fiddles with the blinds. Someone's hand squeezes his.  
Someone's hand closes the door.

Sleep.


End file.
